Haze Fines Win Indonesia’s Support With Caveats: Southeast Asia

Singapore’s Pollutant Standards Index peaked at 401 in June 2013, 100 points above the “hazardous” threshold. While the index in Singapore hasn’t topped 100 in 2014, an El Nino weather pattern may bring drought and worse smog this year to Southeast Asia, said Environment Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, who expects final approval for the bigger fines in August. Photographer: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg

July 30 (Bloomberg) -- The incoming president of Indonesia,
a holdout in Southeast Asia’s pact to fight haze, is backing
Singapore’s plan to wield heftier fines against overseas
polluters as long as sovereignty is respected.

A year after the city-state endured its worst-ever air
quality, Singapore presented a bill to Parliament this month
that subjects foreign companies to as much as S$2 million ($1.6
million) in fines for illegal emissions, up from S$300,000
before. Indonesia and Singapore have a long-standing dispute
over the haze that blows in from land-clearing fires in Sumatra.

Joko Widodo, the Jakarta governor known as Jokowi who won
this month’s presidential election, agrees that companies
implicated in unlawful fires may be fair game for Singapore’s
enforcers. The sticking point is the sovereignty of Indonesia,
where “incredibly prickly” officials have yet to join other
ASEAN nations in signing a transboundary-haze pact, according to
the Jakarta office of Control Risks Group.

“We should have some detailed protocols to guarantee the
sovereignty of Indonesia,” said Sonny Keraf, Indonesia’s
environment minister from 1999-2001 and adviser to Jokowi. “But
we do appreciate the commitment of the government in Singapore
to penalize these companies’ activities,” he said in an
interview this month.

Accelerating deforestation makes Indonesia the world’s
third-largest emitter after China and the U.S., according to
estimates from organizations including the World Bank. An
outbreak of fires in Riau, a center of Indonesia’s palm oil and
paper industries on Sumatra island, were blamed for last year’s
record smog in Singapore.

Hazard Threshold

Singapore’s Pollutant Standards Index peaked at 401 in June
2013, 100 points above the “hazardous” threshold. While the
index in Singapore hasn’t topped 100 in 2014 and stood at about
54 as of noon today, an El Nino weather pattern may bring
drought and worse smog this year to Southeast Asia, said
Environment Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, who expects final
approval for the bigger fines in August.

“There’s a high risk of unusually dry conditions in Riau
and Sumatra in August and September,” Nigel Sizer, global
director of forests at World Resources Institute, said in an
interview. Unseasonably dry weather in February and March
sparked 3,101 fire alerts on Sumatra, exceeding the 2013 high.

Washington-based WRI is working with Google Inc. and
forestry agencies in Indonesia to use satellite imaging to
pinpoint and respond to fires.

Social Media

“On social media and in the streets, we have seen the
Indonesian people asking for better information about where
these fires are occurring and how their government is
responding,” Dino Patti Djalal, Indonesia’s deputy foreign
minister, said last week. “With this alliance, we will be able
to start answering these questions.”

Singapore’s new fines will require Indonesia to cooperate
with gathering evidence in its territories, which may be seen as
infringement, said Eugene Tan, an associate professor of law at
Singapore Management University. The city would need
“watertight” evidence to win in local courts, he said.

By pursuing culprits in Indonesia, Singapore may risk
retaliation, said Alan Khee-Jin Tan of the National University
of Singapore Law School. “There is a likelihood of Indonesian
lawmakers enacting retaliatory laws that target individuals or
entities in Singapore for infringing Indonesian law,” Tan said.
“That would be diplomatically messy.”

Largest Emitter

While Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Indonesia’s president since
2004, pledged to cut emissions by 26 percent, the nation’s
deforestation rate has surpassed Brazil’s, according to Nature
Climate Change, a journal.

Indonesia lost more than 6 million hectares of primary
forest -- an area the size of England -- from 2000 to 2012,
scientists including Belinda Arunarwati Margono and Fred Stolle
wrote in Nature Climate Change on June 29.

WRI’s monitoring showed fires burning this year on land
controlled by Asia Pacific Resources International Ltd., the
pulp and paper maker with offices in Jakarta and Singapore. The
company known as April said it has a no-burn policy and is a
victim of fast-spreading blazes set by villagers. The firm has
about 700 fire fighters and backs Singapore’s bigger fines.

“The key will be in implementation,” said an April
spokesman who asked not to be identified in a July 18 e-mail.
Determining the cause of fires and who is responsible is
difficult because of overlapping land rights, he said.

Ganging Up

Indonesia has yet to ratify the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations’ 2002 haze treaty, which requires nations to take
steps against forest fires and cooperate with neighbors. Many
Indonesians see it as “ganging up,” said Steve Wilford, Asia
Pacific director at London-based Control Risks, a consultant on
corporate threats and government corruption.

Indonesia’s Parliament is weighing the transboundary bill,
Agus Setyaki, a division head at the Ministry of Environment,
said July 10. The parliament hopes to approve the bill in
September before current legislators end their terms.

Jokowi will push to extend the ASEAN pact beyond haze to
include other environmental threats, Keraf said. Jokowi also
plans to continue a moratorium on new permits to develop
peatlands and primary forests. The ban, set to expire in 2015,
was part of an agreement for $1 billion in aid from Norway.

The next president wants a network of drones to help
monitor and stop land misuse across an archipelago of 17,000
islands that would stretch from New York to Alaska. “Drones are
not only for the military but also for the economy, like for
illegal logging,” Jokowi said in an interview on July 21.